I was looking at them. I think it is an interesting idea, however I still think that they will have a different market than Android and iPad.

The Windows 8 tablets will have to be more powerful IMO to run the OS. This means that they will either be much heavier, or they will not have a long battery life. I also think they will be a bit more pricey than the iPad and Android tabs.

I've downloaded the os, all i can say is OMG! wow... this is really really nice.
Granted this is just the developer edition and they still need to come out with the beta release and then the final release which supposedly comes out mid 2012.. but wow.. I have to say it looks like Microsoft is actually getting serious. I setup my home server with the 64bit edition and wow.. im actually on it right now as i type.. RDP is seemless, access anywhere ties in with your live account or you can set it up with gmail or another. (i'll have to try with my google account and see if it works from there as well) I mean this is really really nice. The home screen or main screen could use some work, to dang artistic for my taste.. But its fast.
also it will run on an atom proc with under 2GB of ram.. I'll have to borrow my daughters netbook and see how it runs on there.. If it runs better than windows 7 starter then its deff a killer...
I still need to play with all the other features but I'm very very impressed.. Boot up time is faster than anything I've seen. Even Linux isn't this quick from power up to log on.. (except MAYBE cli only)

just to add, IE10, WOW!!!! THIS IS HOW THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE IE BEFORE!!!!!

Hi - iam new to this forum but have been following closley as i am about to make the leap and by a transformer. However seeing the recent hype around the win8 tablets i am now wondering whether to hold off and wait for either a win8 tablet or the price of the android tablets to fall given the new competition. My query is would it be possible to install win8 at a future date if i purchase a current spec transformer. Also is the keyboard dock worth buying???

Hi - iam new to this forum but have been following closley as i am about to make the leap and by a transformer. However seeing the recent hype around the win8 tablets i am now wondering whether to hold off and wait for either a win8 tablet or the price of the android tablets to fall given the new competition. My query is would it be possible to install win8 at a future date if i purchase a current spec transformer. Also is the keyboard dock worth buying???

windows 8 wont be in full release until 2012, so thats a while to wait. also, im not sure if there will the option of putting win 8 on the transformer... it all depends on if Microsoft makes the arm version of win8 available to the public. and at this point we don't know how win8 tablets will compare price wise with the current transformer. $400 is pretty cheap, and i doubt a win8 tablet will come at that price.
the keyboard dock is worth buying for sure. i love it and use it for classes and in my dorm. the added usb ports and battery life make it a necessity.

I've had the unique opportunity for 2 different Windows 8 "preview sessions" with Microsoft staff so far in 2011. As others have indicated, its targeted mostly for the tablet/mobile device market, but configurable for a desktop as well.

Having "played with it" about 90 minutes in total to date, and realizing it is not a finished product at this moment...I have some early "observations" about Windows 8 so far:

1) Several key sections of the User Interface are "dumbed down" to the point they reminded me of the elementary school "Leapfrog" toy computers. They appear to infer people have never used a computer before, and require "blocks" of content to navigate.

2) The choice of colors at first is appealing, but becomes somewhat "crayola childish" after using things a while.

3) On the plus side...some parts of the functionality streamline capabilities specifically for tablet operation (in comparison to a PC mouse for example)

4) Based on the design disparity among various "components" in the UI, Windows 8 has the appearance (in early beta now) of being developed by disparate teams of designers, rather than a uniform "look and feel". The devil will be in the details.

5) There are parts of the UI that seem designed more for smartphone functionality rather than tablets.

All in all...its a work "in progress". If they don't make some significant changes in the UI, I suspect many users could be "turned off" by their over-simplification of navigation and "immature user look and feel" for even common functions.

Thanks for the updates, I did see more on microsofts site about support for pretty much all cpus.. verynice.
Regarding the question on wait to get windows 8 tab or get one now.. if you can wait that long... as was said wont be out tilll probably mid 2012 and alotcan happen between now and then.
The biggest things that impressed me was the features that will tie into server. I saw the info on server 8, mark minasi released on his blog someheads up and its going to be really nice.
I agree the tablet so far looks rather cartoony. reminded me of a mac..

I agree the tablet so far looks rather cartoony. reminded me of a mac..

One of the biggest drawbacks about windows OS is that it's not as user friendly as a mac OS. My 70 yr old uncle, a former professor who never got around to using computers, had a lot of trouble when he decided to pick up a vista version for his computer exploration in his old age. He recently switched to mac and WOW he seems ike a pro now.

Perhaps this is the direction microsoft is moving towards? They're trying to dumb down the learning curve to attract more users.